March 17, 2016
Cash transfers break the poverty cycle in Zanzibar

Seven years ago, at the age of 18, Ms. Kazijya Kila dropped out of secondary school in Donge Mnyimbe, Zanzibar, due to her pregnancy. Her parents were not happy with the drop out. She was a young girl in a family that was struggling to make ends meet and hoping that they could break free from their current situation and predicaments by educating their only girl.

Year 2010 came and Kazijya got married and also had her first born son Haridh Hamis. Life was tough for her as a new mother with no job or any other source of income. “I was newly married, with a baby and I was just a housewife. Life was really hard. The first three years of my marriage were the hardest.  I would wake up at night and hear my baby crying and most times, it was because he hadn’t had enough to eat. That used to break my heart.” Kazijya recalls.  “I felt like all the odds were against my new family”, she adds.

In 2013,  Kazijya enrolled with the Tanzania Productive Social Safety Nets Projects' Conditional Cash Transfers, supported by the SDG Fund, and received her first instalment of 20,000 shillings (equivalent to about 10 dollars). “This cash support has been a blessing. My life has never been the same again” she says. Thanks to those transfers, Kazijya was able to start her own business.

The story of Kazijya is one of many stories from 1.1 million households in mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar that have had their lives changed since 2008, when the Government of Tanzania launched the Productive Social Safety Nets Project (Tanzania PSSN Project) via TASAF (Tanzania Social Action Fund) and assisted in the introduction of Conditional Cash Transfers programs. These programs have so far helped these 1.1 million vulnerable households living below the food poverty line, which is currently 9.8 percent of the population. The households benefit from a combination of basic conditional transfers, cash transfer through participation in labour intensive public works; advice and support concerning savings and investments".

Since January 2015, the SDG Fund Joint Programme (JP) in Tanzania  assists to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger supporting the scale-up of the TASAF-PSSN Project. The JP focuses on finalizing and operationalizing the National Social Protection Framework to strengthen inter-sectoral coordination, as well as it enhances efficiency and effectiveness by strengthening implementation and delivery systems. The JP also strengthens sustainable livelihoods and resilience mechanisms, that allow beneficiaries to accumulate human capital, improve consumption and well-being.

Interventions are happening in 22 project area authorities, on the basis of the poverty mapping from the 2012 census. The criteria for selection is fully in line with targeting and creating opportunities for the poorest in Tanzania. Beneficiaries are extremely poor households (below the food poverty line). This includes women, children, youth, elderly, people living with disabilities and people living with HIV and AIDS.

Smiling with hope

Today, Kazijya makes an average of 7,000 shillings (4 dollars) a day from her food making business where she makes 'urojo', a popular Zanzibar street food delight also known as the Zanzibar mix. The mix is made up of a flour based soup, flavoured with lemon and mango with some cubed potatoes, fried mashed potatoes, dashes of chutney, and some potato shavings.

She now saves half of the money she makes daily through the popular women’s saving groups in Zanzibar. “I was once just a stay at home mom, now I am saving to build a house, I have money to take Haridh to the hospital and feed him well on a daily basis.” Kazijya says, adding that her parents have never been prouder of her. “Now all they want to see is the day that Haridh starts school” she says, smiling with hope." 

By Zoe Glorious, Web and Social Media Communications Associate, United Nations Resident Coordinator Office, Tanzania